The Joe Pepitone Jersey
Date Night (2010)
directed by Shawn Levy
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
seen on the screen at the Manor Theatre
My least favorite scene in Date Night is Steve Carrel's "heartfelt" appeal to Mark Wahlberg. Wahlberg plays the beefed-up but sensitive romantic he perfected while charming Lou Diamond Phillips in The Big Hit, and Carrel needs Mark's help to really make his night in the city a success. "I'm just an ordinary slob with ordinary disappointments and daydreams," he sobs (more or less), and of course it works because bad screenwriters love to condescend to the lives that they think average Americans lead.
But that little diatribe aside, Date Night is warm, funny, and surprisingly fair in its assessment of the state of modern movie marriages. Tina Fey doesn't have to be a shrew, Carrel doesn't have to be a schlub, and they can both aspire to a happy union and even a little romance without it seeming too much like something you'd see in an ad for Parenthood. And yes, Tina Fey winds up dressed like a stripper, and no, Steve Carrel doesn't, but at least crooked District Attorney Frank Crenshaw isn't happy until they hit the pole together. Let's see Crenshaw's date night in the sequel.
Meanwhile, J. B. Smoove, James Franco, and Mila Kunis take the cameos and run (to the bank). If "Taste" is all we get of Daniel Desario until Your Highness, a taste will have to do.
directed by Shawn Levy
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
seen on the screen at the Manor Theatre
My least favorite scene in Date Night is Steve Carrel's "heartfelt" appeal to Mark Wahlberg. Wahlberg plays the beefed-up but sensitive romantic he perfected while charming Lou Diamond Phillips in The Big Hit, and Carrel needs Mark's help to really make his night in the city a success. "I'm just an ordinary slob with ordinary disappointments and daydreams," he sobs (more or less), and of course it works because bad screenwriters love to condescend to the lives that they think average Americans lead.
But that little diatribe aside, Date Night is warm, funny, and surprisingly fair in its assessment of the state of modern movie marriages. Tina Fey doesn't have to be a shrew, Carrel doesn't have to be a schlub, and they can both aspire to a happy union and even a little romance without it seeming too much like something you'd see in an ad for Parenthood. And yes, Tina Fey winds up dressed like a stripper, and no, Steve Carrel doesn't, but at least crooked District Attorney Frank Crenshaw isn't happy until they hit the pole together. Let's see Crenshaw's date night in the sequel.
Meanwhile, J. B. Smoove, James Franco, and Mila Kunis take the cameos and run (to the bank). If "Taste" is all we get of Daniel Desario until Your Highness, a taste will have to do.
posted by NPK at 7:18 PM
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